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Samuel Doe
Samuel Kanyon Doe (May 6, 1951 – September 9, 1990) was a Liberian politician who served as the Liberian leader from his overthrow of previous president William Tolbert in 1980 until his brutal murder at the hands of Prince Johnson in 1990. Initially serving as the head of a military junta (known as the People's Redemption Council), proper elections were held in 1985 allowing Doe to assume the mantle of President of Liberia proper. Civil war broke out in 1989 between the Doe government and various rebel factions, and Doe was captured, tortured during interrogation and executed in an internationally televised display in September 1990. Biography On May 6, 1951 Doe was born in Tuzon, a small inland village in Grand Gedeh County. His family belonged to the Krahn people, a minority indigenous group important in this area. At the age of sixteen, Doe finished elementary school and enrolled at a Baptist junior high school in Zwedru. Two years later, he enlisted in the Armed Forces of Liberia, hoping thereby to obtain a scholarship to a high school in Kakata, but instead he was assigned to military duties. Over the next ten years, he was assigned to a range of duty stations, including education at a military school and commanding an assortment of garrisons and prisons in Monrovia. He finally completed high school by correspondence. Doe was promoted to the grade of Master sergeant on 11 October 1979 and made an administrator for the Third Battalion in Monrovia, which position he occupied for eleven months. While Master Sergeant of the army, Doe staged a violent coup d'etat in April 1980 that left him de facto head of state. During the coup, then president William R. Tolbert, Jr., and much of the True Whig Party leadership were executed. Doe then established the People's Redemption Council, assuming the role of chairman. The PRC, assuming the role of a military junta, would govern the country for five years. In 1985, Doe disbanded the council and ordered democratic elections to be held. He would officially be elected the 21st President of Liberia, though it is believed that the election was rigged in his favor and he won mostly via election fraud. Doe had support from the United States; it was a strategic alliance due to his anti-Soviet stance taken during the years of the Cold War prior to the changes in 1989 that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Doe attempted to legitimize his regime with passage of a new constitution in 1984 and elections in 1985. However, opposition to his rule increased, especially after the 1985 elections, which were declared to be fraudulent by most foreign observers. For political reasons, the US continued to support him. In November 1985 Thomas Quiwonkpa, Doe's former second-in-command, with an estimated 500 to 600 number people, failed in an attempt to seize power; all were executed. Doe was sworn in as president on January 6, 1986. Doe then initiated crackdowns against certain tribes, such as the Gio and Mano, in the north, where most of the coup plotters came from. This government's mistreatment of certain ethnic groups resulted in divisions and violence among indigenous peoples, who until then had coexisted relatively peacefully. In the late 1980s, as fiscal austerity took hold in the United States and the perceived threat of Communism declined with the waning of the Cold War, the U.S. became disenchanted with Doe's government and began cutting off critical foreign aid to Liberia. This, together with the popular opposition, made Doe's position precarious. Charles Taylor, a former ally of Doe (who would be much worse than Doe), entered Liberia on December 24, 1989 to assassinate the dictator and monopolize power. Taylor had escaped from a US prison in which he entered after Doe accused him of embezzlement. By mid-1990, most of Liberia was controlled by rebel factions and the country had become engulfed in a bloody civil war. Doe, in an apparent movement of last resort, repeated his offer on state radio to form a government of national unity, which would include the rebel front and all political parties. Taylor has already rejected the proposal. Rebels were reported a few hundred meters from the main state radio transmitter, which still broadcast music interspersed with repeated transmissions of the government's offer. Doe was captured in Monrovia by Taylor's ally Prince Johnson on September 9, 1990. He was brutally tortured and mutilated while Johnson interrogated him before he died by being tortured after twelve hours. The torture was recorded on video and was shown on newscasts around the world; videos of the torture session have even surfaced on YouTube. The video shows his interrogator Prince Johnson drinking a Budweiser beer while cutting Doe's ears. Doe's naked body was then dragged through the streets of Monrovia. Ironically, Samuel Doe died at the hands of a coup Liberian, like his predecessor who had also succumbed to a person who took power by force. Doe's repressive and censorial military dictatorship and his transformation from a shy, thin and soft-spoken sergeant major into a large, well-fed and well-dressed commander in chief earned him a place alongside other notorious heads of state such as Idi Amin Dada (Uganda), Jean-Bédel Bokassa (Central African Republic), and Jean-Claude Duvalier (Haiti). Gallery Trivia *He shares the same fate as Muammar Gaddafi since they were both Africans and led a coup and died before being tortured on camera. 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